Polishing your kayak

This is an updated version of an article I wrote in 2005 regarding the use of shoe polish to improve the look of my 1980’s vintage Nordkapp HM.

Polishing your Kayak Always one for the soft touch as I walked around the London Boat Show I was convinced, along with a couple of companions, that I really needed some leather balsam for protecting my shoes. I parted with my £10.00 and walked on my way. Some time later I stumbled across some fibre glass polish, now this was interesting as my 20 year old Nordkapp was starting to show its age. Whereas £10 seemed a huge amount for shoe polish I was far more willing to part with £40 to protect my beloved sea kayak.
I returned home with two types of polish with the aim of writing a review of the one for fibre glass. I followed the instructions and sat back to review my handy work. With my hand on my heart I felt unable to write a review as I didn’t want you, dear reader, to make the same mistake as me and part with their hard earned cash. The fibre glass polish was really disappointing.
Each week I used the leather balsam on my shoes never realizing that I held in my hand the key to restoring my kayak to some of its former glory. That is until Chris said, “Have you tried the shoe polish on your kayak?” Somewhat sceptically I applied the polish, it was quick and easy to do and the impact was amazing. Almost instantly scratches appeared to disappear and the colours were restored.

A photograph taken in 2005, which clearly illustrates the difference an application of Renapur polish can make to the appearance of a kayak.

Once the kayak was on the water the droplets glistened in the sunlight, it was just like paddling a new kayak. The great thing is that it only takes a matter of minutes to re-apply the polish, therefore it can be repeated on a regular basis ensuring that your precious kayak maintains its perfect looks.

Paddling around Nordkapp in August 1986. At this point the kayak was just over 12 months old. There has been a lot of water under the hull since then.

The Nordkapp on a beach in Greenland in 1993, still looking pretty good.

The freshly polished front deck. Unfortunately it wasn’t sunny, if it had been the water droplets would be sparkling. This was taken today returning to Jersey from the Ecrehous.

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About Sea Paddler

The Sea Paddler website has been in existence in various forms since 1996. Initially as a site which provide a large amount of information about general sea kayaking. From about 2008 it functioned as a blog and now the aim is to provide a mixture of the two.
The focus was on sea kayaking in Jersey but has expanded into other geographical areas and different activities.

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